


The Day We Forgot The Guitarist

by thrashunreal



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Concert, Fluff, Gen, Humor, MCR, Ray needs a hug, Sexual Humor, on tour
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 00:28:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9354350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thrashunreal/pseuds/thrashunreal
Summary: Mikey Way was on tour with his two (obviously in love with each other) bandmates when he realized that something was missing. After checking through all of his stuff, he finally figured it out.They were missing their guitarist.Meanwhile, Ray Toro was beginning to panic while he was waiting for his bandmates in a truck stop in the middle of nowhere. After spending hours searching for them, he finally discovered that the rest of My Chemical Romance was already in Chicago, where they were still trying to figure out what they were going to do without him. After all, it seemed increasingly clear that everything would fall apart on the day that My Chemical Romance forgot their guitarist.





	1. Frank and Gerard Really Need to Get a Room

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! Before we start, I just want to point out that I didn't write the chapters from Ray's point of view. My friend did, and you can read her fics as epichorn31 on Wattpad.

My name is Mikey Way, and here's my deepest, darkest secret: sometimes, I think about ending the whole facade.

I would sneak a camera into their room and take the smuttiest, most glorious photo I could of Frank and Gerard. I know it would cause the shitstorm of a century. I can picture it now: the fangirls screaming and reposting with #frerardislife or something crazy like that, because finally they have proof of the famed ship's existence! It would ruin Frank and Gerard's lives, between the overblown media attention and the voyeuristic fangirls throwing themselves at the guys constantly.

Maybe the Westboro Baptist Church would picket one of our concerts, and one of the fans would beat them up. That would be awesome.

Sadly, for reasons that were obvious to anyone with a functional brain, this was a stupid and potentially illegal idea that would probably get me kicked out of My Chemical Romance and for all their...ahem, quirks, I really did love my bandmates.

So I stayed silent even though there are moments where this I'm struck with an intense desire to make my revenge fantasy a reality. I had one of those moments a few years ago, when we were driving to Chicago in a beat-up tour bus, probably on loan from the 1990s and used by almost every band without money since then, and we certainly fit that description well. Even after four albums, we were still stuck using the same damn bus as Justin Bieber. Kill me now.

The main problem with that bus, as I had found after many sleepless nights, is that the walls were basically glorified cardboard. Add the thick, bulky frame on Frank and Gerard's bed that was constantly thwacking against my wall because of, well, you know why, and I hadn't slept in weeks.

I heard telltale kissing sounds coming from our makeshift living room, and put my headphones on in a vain attempt to avoid listening. Frerard was kind of cute in the beginning, especially when Gerard dyed his hair rainbow striped to come out to me and announce their relationship, but by that point it was just annoying as hell.

I was just getting started on a new idea for an album theme (but not focusing, however, due to a nagging, random sense of not having something important) when Frank sheepishly opened the door into my room, clad in only boxer shorts."Hey, man, so Gee and I were about to, you know, get down to it, and, um, what I was wondering is, do you have any...protection?" he asked, pausing before the last word for a euphemistic eyebrow raise.

I sighed, laughing mirthlessly and rubbing my forehead. "Dude, do you seriously think I have any of that shit? I'm an emo white guy in his thirties who plays the goddamn bass while other emo white guys sing about their feelings into microphones for attention because we're just so bored. You'll have to find your condoms somewhere else."

"Come on, man. Just take a look."

"Fine," I said, and got up and started to look through my mess of a sleeping area.

I couldn't find it, and I knew I was half-assing the search, but I had really only agreed to look so I could see what it was that I had left at the last hotel or whatever. I knew I was missing something, but I just didn't know what.

Suddenly, Gerard yelled from the small kitchen in the back.

"Hey, did Mikey have anything?"

"Nope."

I heard him continue to rummage around in the cabinets, and then he shouted back to his boyfriend. "I found some Saran Wrap, you think this'll work? We are kind of desperate here."

"You know, you might just want to wait until we get to the hotel to do this. I mean, dude, have you thought about all of the people who must have had sex on these tour bus beds?" I said, continuing to tear my room apart.

Sometimes I wondered why I even tried.

Finally, I did find something— an old Trojan Ecstasy, a high school reject stuck in my bag from the days when I thought I was cool. I interrupted their scintillating debate on which household item would make a better condom by throwing the real one at them and walking out.

Frank and Gerard retreated into their shared room, furiously making out all the way there, and I breathed a sigh of relief, and headed near the back of the bus far away from them.

For some reason, I still couldn't shake the feeling that I'd forgotten something.

I opened up the door to the storage area. We kept all of our stuff back here, right at the end of the bus: the instruments, mics, tech stuff, everything. It's a tight fit, but we made do with what we could. We were on the Bieber bus, after all.

The sense of having something missing only increased as I surveyed our inventory and find everything in its place. We had my bass, the sound equipment, the guitar...

Fuck.

Shitfuck, in fact.

We had the guitar, but we didn't have the guitarist.

It hit me all at once - we had left our lead guitarist Ray Toro at the truck stop, about twenty-five miles ago and we were only driving further away from him.

We were completely and utterly fucked.


	2. Chapter 2

My name is Ray Toro, and this is my deepest, darkest secret: sometimes I just want to give Gerard Arthur Way a nice whack on the head with my guitar.

It probably wouldn't do much good, since all that would do is damage Gerard's brain, and trust me, he needs all of the brain cells that he can get.

However, the lead singer of My Chemical Romance can be extraordinarily irritating sometimes, and that's why it was so awesome when I actually got my chance to whack Gerard on the head once. It was a few years ago, and it all started in a truck stop in the middle of nowhere. I was wandering around the place, wondering where exactly my bandmates had run off to. I had been looking for at least an hour, and they were nowhere to be found. I wasn't terribly concerned though. They had to be around here somewhere. Maybe Frank had found a puppy to pet, or maybe Gerard was at Starbucks (despite the fact that there were no puppies or Starbucks in sight). They wouldn't leave me behind, right?

Of course, I was completely ignoring the fact that they had already left me behind sixty eight times before, not that I was counting or anything. They usually realized their error very quickly though. I would call one of them and they'd turn around to come get me. My bandmates WERE only liars, but they were the best.

I just really didn't want this to be the sixty-ninth time that I had been left behind.

I made one last lap around the truck stop before taking out my phone and dialing Mikey's number. It immediately went to voicemail. Darn it - I had forgotten that Mikey's phone had died on the way here. I tried to call Frank, but he didn't pick up.

I gave up and began contemplating whether my bandmates were growing up or just going down as I stormed into the convenience store, which was the last place I'd seen Frank, Gerard, and Mikey. It was desolate, with kelly green paint chipping off the walls and, discarded bottle of beer laid on the floor next to my feet. A liquor store or two was supposed to keep the gas tank full, but it was starting to look emptier and emptier as I searched.

They were still nowhere to be found. I bought an ice cream sandwich to help myself calm down while I waited for my bandmates. Again, I knew they just had to be around here somewhere.

I took out my phone again and dialed Gerard's number. There were a few other people in the store, and it was a little bit loud, so I ended up putting the phone on speaker, completely forgetting that Gerard had the world's sappiest voicemail. "Hello, you've reached Gerard Way," I heard Gerard say. "I can't come to the phone right now, so please leave a..."

"Hey Gerard, what are you doing?" Frank asked.

"I'm making a new voicemail," Gerard explained.

"Oh okay," Frank said. "Can I say something for it?"

"You already did," Gerard responded.

Frank laughed and then said, "Can I say something else?"

"Go ahead," Gerard said.

_Frank immediately started singing._

_Where, where will you stand_

_When all the lights go out_

_Across these city streets?_

_Where were you when_

_All of the embers fell?_

_I still remember them_

_Covered in ash_

_Covered in glass_

_Covered in all my friends_

_I still think of the bombs they build_

_If there's a place that I could be_

_Then I'd be another memory_

_Can I be the only hope for you?_

_Because you're the only hope for me_

_And if we can't find where we belong_

_We'll have to make it on our own_

_Face all the pain and take it on_

_Because the only hope for me is you alone_

__

By the chorus, Gerard had joined in as well. The two of them laughed when they finished the song, and then I heard them kiss. "I love you so much, Gee," Frank said.

"I love you too Frankie," Gerard said. "We should totally put that song on the new album."

"Yeah, we should," Frank said.

"Anyways, leave a message at the tone, unless you're my beautiful Frankie, in which case you can probably just stop by. I'll always have time for you."

Well, Gerard had definitely made it clear as to which member of My Chemical Romance was his favorite. I left a brief message for Gerard. "Hey, this is Ray," I said. "I don't know where you are, but I'm still at the truck stop. Please call me back as soon as possible." I put my phone away and started eating the ice cream sandwich that I had bought. It wasn't nearly as good as I thought it would be - in fact, it was only mediocre. I had undoubtedly had much better ice cream sandwiches in my lifetime.

What I didn't doubt was that one of them would have chided me with a "that's what she said" and laughed if they were here. I knew it sounded cheesy, but I'd never get used to being left like this.

I was starting to get desperate, so I went to talk with the man at the counter after I finished the merely mediocre ice cream sandwich. "Hey, have you seen my bandmates by any chance?" I asked.

"What do they look like?" the man asked. He was somewhat tall, with dark skin and a nametag that read "Esteban."

"Uh, well..." I said awkwardly, trying to remember what color Gerard's hair was. He dyed it so often that I honestly couldn't remember. It had been black, black and red, black and green, black and yellow, white, rainbow-striped (briefly), black again, blond...and red. Oh right, I had forgotten. He had dyed it bright red right before the tour. "They're three guys, and they look like they're from 2005, and all of them are in their thirties, although Gerard doesn't seem like it at all. The redhead and the short one were probably furiously making out while walking - I'm still trying to figure out how they do that..."

"I know who you're talking about," Esteban said. "They left two hours ago."

So it was official. Frank, Mikey, and Gerard had left me behind for the sixty-ninth time. I thanked God for Esteban, and then sighed and called each of them one last time, hoping that somebody would pick up this time. As usual, neither Mikey nor Frank bothered to respond, so I called Gerard. This time, I remembered to turn off the speaker so the entire store wouldn't hear Gerard's Hallmark movie of a voicemail this time.

To my surprise, he picked up. "Hey Ray," he said. "Listen, I'm so sorry that we left you at that truck stop again..."

"So you did realize that I was missing, at the very least." I said, snorting bitterly.

"Not exactly - Mikey told Frank and I," Gerard said. "We're too far away now to come get you since we're almost at the venue, but we can find another guitarist to play for this concert, and you can meet us in Grand Rapids."

"How am I supposed to get all the way to Grand Rapids?" I asked. "That stupid bus was my only form of transportation, and you left on it without me!"

"I don't know," Gerard said. "Figure something out. If you can make it to Chicago, that would be great, but if you can't, then I guess we'll just have to pull something out of our asses and make it work. Okay?"

"Fine," I said, sighing. "Just out of pure curiosity, why didn't you check your phone earlier?"

"Well...um...I had my reasons..." Gerard said, but I knew that he wasn't telling me the whole truth.

"Please tell me that you weren't too busy having sex with your boyfriend to check your damn phone," I said.

"That might have had something to do with it," Gerard admitted.

"Gerard!" I exclaimed, my anger rising. "I can't believe you! I'm going to miss a show just because you and Frank couldn't wait long enough to make sure that you had all of your bandmates! And I bet you didn't even close the goddamn door!"

"I'm really sorry, Ray," Gerard said.

"What the hell, guys?!" I yelled before hanging up.


	3. A Small List of People Who Want to Have Gerard Way's Babies

As much as I wanted to, I couldn't blame this mess on Frank and Gerard. I flashed back to that fatal truck stop when we had forgotten Ray and suddenly realized that I had been in charge of rounding everybody up and keeping track of things. I was an idiot, but I didn't have time to think about it right now. The important thing was the gig, and what on earth we were going to do about it. Gerard could do guitar, but it would be really hard and I knew our performance would suffer if we couldn't get our hands on a lead guitarist fast.

I knew I had to call the venue people first, and see if they had a session guitarist or something. They probably didn't, because when we were booked we were told that, and I quote, to "bring your own eyeliner and stuff and if you don't, we'll tell everyone the real reason why you don't talk to The Used anymore." I figured it was a lost cause, but I had to try anyways.

I dialed the number. "Hello, this is Mikey Way from the band My Chemical Romance. We were scheduled to play at your stadium at eight tonight?"

"Yeah, you got a problem with that? I don't have time for your emo kid whining, just spit it out. What do you want?"

"Er, well, we were wondering if you had a spare session guitarist that could play for us tonight? Ray....let's just say he kind of can't play. I'm really sorry about all the inconvenience."

The guy on the end of the line laughed mockingly and I could imagine him rolling his eyes through the phone. Who on earth let this man run a booking service for rock bands? I wondered. "What's the matter with your real guitarist, did he cut too deep or something? Smudge his eyeliner on the eternal tissue of life?" The executive mock-sobbed into the phone.

It took me a minute to process the implications of his remark, but when I did I found myself becoming righteously indignant.

"What the hell is wrong with you? You think that just because you run a stupid little venue you can just say things like that? People like you are why we aren't taken seriously and why we have to take the Bieber bus! Emo is about love and happiness! I mean, sometimes the love is really fucking annoying, like Frank and Gerard, wait I wasn't supposed to say that..." I paused for a moment, creating a painfully awkward silence, then concluded my epic monologue with "You know what, fuck you!"

I heard a click on the other end of the line and sighed. Well, I just blew any chances of them helping us. I decided to take to Twitter.

hey so ray can't perform and we need someone who knows the songs to play guitar in chicago tonight. DM me if you think you would be a good fit and we'll talk.

Knocking on Frank and Gerard's door, I found that they had mercifully managed to keep their hands off each other long enough for me to wave them into our little living room so we could start going over the insane amount of responses.

"Dude, is Bob Bryar ever going to leave us alone? He sent you a video of himself playing the guitar to a black metal song about how he wants to chop us up and scatter the remains around a copy of The Black Parade. Passive-aggressive much?" I remarked, opening up the first message and watching as unwanted tears streamed down Bob's face while he played.

"At least he's out of his Linkin Park phase. I never told you guys because I didn't want to embarrass him any more than he already was embarrassing himself, but a week after he left, I kid you not, he sent me a video of himself singing one of their angstiest songs. Very badly," responded Frank.

"Maybe it's the five stages of 'my emo band left me' grief? You know, you go from denial to eyeliner-accented sadness to wanting to murder your fellow bandmates to a stupid guitar riff?"

"Sounds about right," said Gerard.

I kept scrolling through all the direct messages I had gotten. Most of them were about one of two things, neither related to our need for a guitarist: how much a particular girl wanted to have to have sex with Gerard herself, and how much a particular girl wanted Frank and Gerard to have sex with each other.

Gerard looked alarmed. "That's...a lot of people who want to have my children."

"Any actual people who can play the guitar?" asked Frank.

"None so far...wait, check out this girl!" Gerard said. I clicked start on the video, glad that we might have finally found someone.

Onscreen, a young woman with dark hair and brown eyes, wearing a pair of skinny jeans and an MCR tank top plugged in an amp and started to play a decent rendition of the guitar part to "Teenagers." It was almost flawless, and I almost replied to her just on the basis of that alone.

After the girl finished, she took her hair out of its ponytail and started to speak into the camera. "Hey, Gerard! I'm twenty-three years old, and I've both played guitar and been a fan of MCR since The Black Parade era. I can play the vast majority of your songs, and if you want to see anything else just message me back and I'll send you another video. I live about an hour away from Chicago, so it'll be really easy for me to get to the venue. Thanks! I really hope you pick me to play for you all because I'm a huge fan."

"This chick looks surprisingly sane...want me to DM her back?" I asked Frank and Gerard.

"Yeah, sounds good!" said Frank.

Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into.


	4. Apparently Not ALL of Evanescence Is Forgotten

I had just gotten off of the phone with Gerard, and I had never felt more alone. My bandmates had left me, and I was stranded at a truck stop with no way to get to the next venue. If this continued, I would probably end up sending a video to my bandmates of myself singing along to an angsty Linkin Park song like Bob.

Actually, I would never let it get that far. I'm not the desperate type - I'd never make a complete fool of myself like that.

I had nothing to do, so I just kept walking around. My phone was almost out of battery, and I wanted to save whatever I had in case I had to contact the band again. I hoped that they had found a replacement guitarist. It would be nearly impossible to play in Chicago if they didn't find one fast.

All of a sudden, I found something. There was a small building on the side of the road near the truck stop with a big sign in front of it. The sign read "This Way To The Forgotten and Underappreciated Band Members Conference." After today's events, I certainly fit the description well, so I opened the door and entered the building.

I was in a large, open room with motivational posters stuck onto the walls. There were chairs arranged in a circle, and almost all of the chairs were filled. This seemed like a good place to wait while I figured out a plan, so I sat down in one of the chairs and waited.

It was just a matter of time before I was found out.

"Hello Ray," I heard someone say softly. "I was wondering if you'd be here."

"Andy?" I said. Of course, it was Andy Hurley. "What are you doing here?"

Joe Trohman was sitting next to him. "We're here for the Forgotten and Underappreciated Band Members Conference, obviously," Joe said.

"Our band's not even together right now, and we're still forgotten!" Andy complained.

"Even some guy named Jason is more remembered than us, and he doesn't even exist!" Joe said.

"That's pretty similar to my situation right now," I said. "My band members left me at that truck stop over there."

"Ugh, that sucks," Joe said.

"But this is what the conference is for," Andy said. "All of us can relate to the feeling of being forgotten."

"Who else is here?" I asked.

"Well, there's everyone in Maroon 5 who isn't Adam Levine," Joe said, gesturing towards a few guys on the other end of the circle who were talking to each other and looked like they had overdosed on testosterone. "And that's everyone in Paramore who isn't Hayley Williams. I think a few members of Evanescence might be here too."

"I don't know why I'm here!" one of the Evanescence guys whined, confirming every stereotype we had had about his band in one sentence. "I don't deserve this."

"Oh yeah, that's Ben Moody," Joe explained. "He's ostensibly the most famous member of Evanescence besides Amy Lee, even though he left."

"I thought that Evanescence was just a forgotten band."

"Apparently not," Andy said.

"Who are you?" one of the Paramore guys asked me. I think his name was Taylor or something, I had apparently forgotten him myself.

"I'm Ray Toro," I said. "I'm from My Chemical Romance."

"Oh yeah," Taylor said. "I kind of remember you. Why are you here?"

"My band members left me here," I said. "They're all playing a show in Chicago right now, and I'm stuck here!"

"That's terrible," Taylor said, "but I can't say that I haven't had experiences like that. The Paramore fandom seems to forget that I exist."

"Well, my own bandmates forgot that I existed!" I said. "That's even worse."

"That is worse," Andy said. "Pete and Patrick never forgot that Joe and I existed."

"And we probably would have killed them if they did," Joe added.

"I just feel so dejected right now," I said. "Is it wrong to be jealous of the amount of fanfiction that gets written about my bandmates? I know that most of it's really disgusting, but even so..."

"That's normal," Andy interjected. "Pete and Patrick have so much fanfic written about them, but we never get any." Everyone else at the conference nodded and shared their own stories about all of the crazy things that their more popular bandmates had done.

"Even the most devoted of our fans think that the band is just the lead singer and the guitarist," one stated. "Everyone forgets about me."

"Our lead singer steals all of the attention," another complained. "I wish I could be the spotlight for once."

"Our band is the same way," a third person said.

"I just really wish that I could get more recognition," a fourth person said.

I felt great knowing that all of these people were in the same situation as I was. However, it didn't solve the problem at hand. "Can anyone give me a ride?" I said. "I really need to get to Chicago. Well, that might not be possible, but if it isn't..."

"I can do it," Joe interrupted.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"I'm sure," Joe said. "Come on Ray. Let's get you to Chicago." I waved to my new friends at the Forgotten and Underappreciated Band Members Conference, and Joe and I left. I hopped into the passenger seat of his car and turned on the radio, which he had replaced after a while of sitting in silence because somebody stole it. I knew this was going to be a long ride, so I kicked my feet up on the dash and savored the feeling. While I was with Joe at least, I could pretend I wasn't being driven away by my band mates, and that every street sign seemed to know my name.


End file.
